Uraguay

My friend Tim let me know about an article that was in the Real Estate section of The New York Times this week on Uruguay.

My fascination with this country started about ten years ago when, as I was working for a company that financed older aircraft, and I attended a few conferences that were put on by Bob Booth. Bob was born in Brazil, but raised in Uruguay and he was and is an endless promoter of Latin America, but particularly Uruguay. He would talk so enthusiastically of the beaches and great food, that I always wanted to visit. Last year while I was visiting Argentina, I went for a day trip to Colonia, which is directly across the Rio de la Plata from Buenos Aires. Colonia is far from the beaches off the east coast of Urugauy so no beachtown and surf for me, but I was impressed by how friendly the people were and how developed the country seemed to be. Both Argentina and Uruguay are known for their beef, so the food was very good and relatively inexpensive (at least at that time last year). The country also has a stable democratic government and demostrates a progresive streak by requiring all its citizens to vote under pentaty of a tax and by the outlawing of bull fighting early in the 20th century. (Nearby there is a photo of an abandoned bullring that I took during my daytrip.)

I think a trip to the east coast of Uruguay in on the agenda for 2009. With the dollar weak, Latin America is a much more reasonable place to travel these days. Perhaps I'll even find a new home there, well, you can always dream.